photo: FERC
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is one of those acronym agencies that regulates a key aspect of the United States economy – the electricity grid – but tends to operate under the radar.
Not any more. With President Barack Obama’s appointment of FERC Comissioner and renewable energy advocate Jon Wellinghoff as the agency’s acting chairman, FERC will play a key role in the administration’s efforts to digitize the nation’s aging analog power grid to promote solar and wind energy while creating green jobs. The largest chunk of the stimulus package devoted to renewable energy – some $54 billion – has been set aside for modernizing the grid.
At a Nov. 18 briefing on Capitol Hill, Wellinghoff showed that he’s been thinking extensively about how to upgrade the grid to connect renewable energy produced in remote areas to population centers on the coasts. “In the whole Midwest of this country there are virtually no high- voltage transmission lines,” he said, displaying Google’s (GOOG) proposal to wean the U.S. from fossil fuels by 2030. “If you overlay where the wind is, all the wind is in the middle of this country – all those areas where we do not have sufficient transmission. Hopefully we can get the structure to put renewables on the grid and improve the grid to make it a smart system that can ultimately deliver these resources in an efficient way.”
Wellinghoff in a December interview with EnergyWashington.com advocated reviving domestic manufacturing of big transformers – now made overseas – to support the expansion of high-voltage power lines across the U.S.
On Monday, Wellinghoff called for electric cars to be integrated into the electric grid, according to a report by Dow Jones. He said FERC could structure rates to pay car owners for returning electricity to the grid from their vehicle batteries to help balance the power supply as more solar, wind and other intermittent sources of energy come online.
At the November briefing, Wellinghoff called electric cars part of “the glue” that will hold a green grid together and said the federal government should consider giving automakers like General Moters (GM) and Ford (F) incentives to produce plug-in hybrids.
“To modernize the grid, we need to define our goals and define a national tranmission planning process,” he said. “Let’s do it. We just need to get it done.”
Green Wombat 
What the “H” is a “digital power grid? Did this mathematician ever hear of Kirchoff’s Law? Cars returning power to the grid? What is this guy smoking? To improve the grid something has to be done about NIMBY.
Redkill,
I believe a digital power grid is a grid that can communicate with its customers to prioritize and time when power is delivered where. For example, with the right grid and the right technology in home appliances the two cna communicate to run the appliance (say a load of laundry that has to be done by tomorrow at 8 am) at a time when the demand for power is low.
Similarly the idea of cars returning power to the grid was poorly written but the idea is for there to be cimmunication between the grid and the cars plugged in everywhere. THe idea is for cars to sell energy back to the grid during times of peak demand and then take the power back during times of lower demand – to help smooth out the power spikes that occur midday. Obviously this would be a feature you could disengage if you need your car fully charged, but since you can make more from selling power at peak times than it costs to get it back at night it would be in everyones interest to have this capability.
The laws of electricity and thermodynamics are set, but with creativity you can maximize the potential of the grid and lower the demand for more power plants.
NIMBYism is something that needs to die. These things have to go somewhere, and if a panel of experts say they should go along a certain path then that is where it should go. We have an energy crisis in this country and sacrifices will be necessary.
Wind Farms in Midwest – Expensive
I built EMS/SCADA and data archiving software for PNM/FPL windfarm in Eastern NM. Winds die in the US midwest wind corridor at night. The wind in the US midwest is available when you least need it (spring and fall).
Peak load occurs in US in June and July due to air conditioning. The cost of rights-of-way for new transmission lines is very expensive. A better use of US grid money will be in creating decentralized local windfarms near coastlines. They meet peak load, reduce rights-of-way, and pay for themselves quickly. They provide energy when and where you need it most.
T. Boone Pickens Plan will not be able to provide electricity for overnight charging of electic cars. Natural gas and coal are the only generators able to fill the gap.
Electric storage in batteries is very inefficient. Line loss from transmission and storage will be above 50%.
Peaking power plants are now used.
They can ramp up fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant
The Bush FERC used electricity as a weapon against California.
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/RangerRick/11273
Lets hope the Obama FERC will not waste dollars on transmission lines and instead of follow the California model of decentralized power.
We are using animated simulations to teach power grid economics and problems with electric power in local schools.
Kids can take the code and customize it for their region. How will electric cars effect the peak load period?
Students can visualize power grid issues (Examples: NM Wind farms fail at night and during peak summer load,
ENRON gaming of 2001 CA power markets.)
CA windfarms based on coastal winds are a better provider of electricity during peak loads and night.
Decentralized power grids in CA may be the answer.
Cartoon of World Power Grids and Electric Cars:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/GeneMachine/258412
Overview of world electric power grids: Europe, China, India, Brazil, and US power girds.
The electric power grid allows fossil fuels to convert heat to electricity and is used in air conditioners.
Electric cars will now compete for electricity during peak summer months.
This causes global warming through spiraling demand for electricity.
Air conditioners are installed in 90% of new homes in US. AC use is now spiraling worldwide.
Electric cars may soon use more electricity than air conditioners.
Create a Polywell fusion reactor at electric substations to decentralize the power grid. Stop global warming and go plugin.
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/GeneMachine/77493
The Power Grid simulations are created using processing,
http://processing.org
Ben Fry developed at MIT.
I have created many of the World Power Grid maps and a simple EMS/SCADA simulation of each power grid in Java or as MS exe.
If you are interested, let me know. Kids can now manage simulations of World Power Grids. Here is a graphic of SW/US power grid.
Energy Management System/Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (EMS/SCADA) systems manage power grids.
Kids could buy and sell power and compete on power grid. Students could take software and customize it for their region.
We need kids all over the world to simulate the problems with their power grid.
Los Alamos engineers are building a Polywell fusion reactor for use at substations.
This could decentralize power grids worldwide.
The Polywell fusion simulation allows kids to control the reactor.
Electricity will soon be a critical infrastructure for transportation.
We should make it more reliable and resistant to manipulation.
Some alternative energy allow Boone Pickens or Google to recentralize power.
Polywell fusion reactors are an example of decentralizing power.
How would a EMS/SCADA work for a decentralized grid?
Could many small power coops use a public domain EMS/SCADA to manage a decentralized grid?
How would standardization of EMS/SCADAs work? How would CALISO manage many smaller grids?
Today ABB and Siemens dominate EMS/SCADA.
Could an open source EMS/SCADA be next?
Article on decentralized grid: Flexible/Local Power Grid
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=YNYRBPMG5ICLSQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=211200662
VULCAN could show students that air conditioning electric demand is the main contributor to global warming.
How we manage additional demands on the electric grid (electric cars) will determine our success in reducing global warming.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/AmericanCarbon/
Could Vulcan create a global map of power grids so users could drill down into their region? See attached file.
The US Navy is funding research into building a fusion reactor to replace nuclear reactors in Navy.
Could Obama administration accelerate research for civilian electric power generation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-iec-fusion-experiment-contract.html
A small fusion electric generator developed for US Navy could decentralize world power grids. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell